This week on “The Historians”, Jerry Snyder of Historic Amsterdam (N.Y.) League on their Ghosts of the Past Tour; Barry Wygel of Time Warner Cable News on the 100th anniversary of the Glove Theatre in Gloversville; my story of two Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, one black and one white, who fought in the Civil War

In the second half of the show I talk with Angela Cave, author of the book Keeping Time, the remarkable story of 98-year old drummer Fred Randall from Schenectady.

This week on “The Historians”, retired Fulton County historian and Leader Herald history columnist Peter Betz has the story of an early drowning — or not — in the Sacandaga Reservoir. In the second half of the show I talk with Laura Winter Falk about her book Culinary History of the Finger Lakes: From the Three Sisters to Riesling (History Press).

This week on “The Historians”, popular historian Thomas Cahill discusses his latest book, Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created our World.

In the second half of the show I talk with novelist April Smith about the novel A Star for Mrs. Blake. The novel is based on a federal program in the early 1930s that offered Gold Star Mothers an opportunity to go to Europe to visit the graves of their sons killed in World War One.

This week on “The Historians”, Craig Gravina discusses Albany ale, the Albany political machine’s favorite beer (Hedrick’s) and other sudsy topics. Gravina, from Albany, and Alan McLeod of Canada, are co-authors of Upper Hudson Valley Beer, published by History Press.

In the second half hour of the show, I talk with Earl Swift, author of Auto Biography: A Classic Car, An Outlaw Motorhead and 57 Years of the American Dream, the story of a 1957 Chevy.

My first foray into local history was in 2000 when Steve Dunn and I co-produced the WMHT television documentary “Historic Views of the Carpet City: Amsterdam, N.Y.” Amsterdam is my home town. That same year my first book came out, self published. “You Can’t Go Wrong: Stories from Nero, N.Y. and Other Tales” was a compilation of satirical newspaper columns I had written for the Troy Record and Daily Gazette of Schenectady about Nero, a mythical Upstate New York city settled after all the good classical names such as Troy, Utica and Syracuse had been taken. Nero is a place so negative that “I don’t blame you” is a compliment.

In 2000 I pitched the Daily Gazette on doing “Focus on History”, stories from Montgomery and Fulton Counties. The column ran every other week until 2004 when it became a weekly fixture of the Saturday paper. Until his death last year, the column was edited by the Gazette’s incisive city editor Irv Dean. [Read more…] about Bob Cudmore: How ‘The Historians’ Came to WVTL Radio